


Won't You Come Home Will Bailey

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-05-19
Updated: 2003-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-30 22:40:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15106280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: Will gets called home.





	Won't You Come Home Will Bailey

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

**Won't You Come Home Will Bailey**

**by:** Stacey Powers 

**Character(s):** Will  
**Pairing(s):** None  
**Category(s):** Drama   
**Rating:** YTEEN  
**Disclaimer:** Will Bailey and any of the other characters you recognize belong to Aaron Sorkin and all of the other brilliant folks behind The West Wing.  The characters you don’t recognize are mine I suppose.  
**Summary:** Will gets called home  


Will shut his laptop and took off his glasses, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms.  He was tired, but it was a good tired.  The kind of tired you felt when you’d accomplished something.  In this case, it was a speech on Medicare Reform...”Again.”  Will said to himself.

            As the newest member of the West Wing staff, Will Bailey came to the job with a certain amount of idealism, but it was tempered with a lifetime of observation of the political arena courtesy of a family steeped in its history.  His grandfather had been a close confidant to Winston Churchill and Will’s own father, Thomas Bailey, was the Supreme Commander, NATO Allied Forces, Europe.  He had grown up wanting very much to carry on the family tradition and here he was, Deputy Communications Director in the Bartlet White House.

            The memory of his father’s reaction made Will smile.

            “Well, congratulations Will.  It’s about time someone over there in Washington realized the wealth of potential in the Bailey family.”

            “Thank you Dad.”

            “You tell that boss of yours if he needs any advise, he can call me.”  The elder Bailey was not speaking of Toby Ziegler, the Communications Director, as the casual listener might conclude, but about the President of the United States himself and Will knew it.

            “I’ll do that Dad.”  He smiled at the receiver.

 

            “Will?”

            Ginger’s voice startled Will out of his reverie.

            “Yes?”

            “Sorry.  There’s a woman on the phone for you.  The White House Operator transferred her to Toby’s line.  She says she’s your step-mother.”

            “My step...Go ahead and transfer her please.”  He could tell that she wanted more information, but he wasn’t about to give any, especially right now.  His step-mother, Elaine, rarely called him.  It wasn’t that they didn’t get along, they just didn’t often have occasion to talk.  There were very few reasons she could be calling him now, none of them good as far as Will was concerned.  His phone rang and he picked it up on the first ring.

            “Elaine?”

            “William?”

            “Yes, it’s me Elaine.  What’s happened?”

            “William, you have to come home right away.  Your father is ill.”

            “Ill?”  The word didn’t seem to apply to Thomas Bailey.

            “Yes.  He is in the hospital.”  Elaine was clearly distraught, her voice shaking, and she was very close to tears if she wasn’t crying already, but Will was having difficulty refraining from raising his voice in frustration.  He seemed to be prying the details from her.

            “What happened Elaine?”  He kept his voice level with great effort.

 

            The thing about an international flight was that it gave one plenty of time to think, and in Will’s mind right now, time was the enemy.  In order to make it seem to pass more quickly, he thought that he would work a bit, but right now, in the semi-darkness of the 747’s cabin, the glow of Will’s laptop cast his pensive face in an unearthly light.  There was a speech pulled up, but Will’s mind was a thousand miles away.  Or twenty years away to be more exact.

****************

            _“Good afternoon Master William.”_

_“Good afternoon Louise.”  Will greeted his parents’ maid.  “Is my father home?”_

_“Oh no Master William, he’s been gone since early this morning.”_

_Will felt his face fall into a frown.  He’d been at school three months, not even coming home for Thanksgiving and his father knew that he was coming home today. He couldn’t be home just one afternoon?  Well, that was his father, he sighed and adjusted his suitcase for the climb up the stairs and to his room._

_Just then, a familiar voice stopped him in his tracks._

_“Willie?!”  The tiny, dark haired whirlwind that was his step-sister Elsie, launched herself at him and he barely had time to put his bag down before he had an armful of her._

_“Don’t call me that.”  He whispered into her hair as he hugged her tightly._

_At ten years old, Elsie was five years younger than Will and she was closer to him than any of his brothers, both in age and in temperament.  She had been two years old when her mother had married Thomas Bailey and she didn’t remember a time when Will wasn’t her big brother.  Will himself had been the youngest for seven years, and when Elaine Snufin married his father and brought her small daughter with her, Will was overjoyed.  He hated being the baby of the family.  Now he would have someone to look out for.  The fact that Elsie looked up to him, didn’t hurt either._

_The two separated and Elsie tried to hoist Will’s suitcase, but she couldn’t even lift it off the ground._

_“Give me that.”  Will scolded gently as he took the object from her and started toward the stairs once more, Elsie on his heels.  “I hear Dad’s not home.”_

_“Nope.  Mom isn’t either.  She had some last minute Christmas Shopping in town.”_

_“Huh.”  Will was barely listening, still smarting that his father wasn’t here to greet him._

_“Willie, you know that Dad would have been here if he could.”_

_Will cast a glance over his shoulder.  Elsie had the uncanny ability to read his mind.  Even at ten, she was frighteningly astute._

_“Yeah.  I know.”  He sighed.  But did he know?  He couldn’t remember the last time his father’s work hadn’t interfered with their family time.  When he became a father, he knew that he would never let his work get in the way of his family._

**************

            “Sir.  Would you like anything else to drink?”  The flight attendant’s voice brought Will back to the present.

            “N-No, thank you.”  He handed her his empty water glass and with a polite smile, she took it and walked away.

            Alone once more, Will thought about that time in his life and the promises he’d made to himself and any future family he would have.  His had been a childhood filled with private schools and summer breaks spent mostly in the company of Elsie and the family’s maid.  Even his brothers, Paul, the oldest at ten years Will’s senior, Michael , three years younger than Paul and John, three years younger than Michael didn’t spend much time at the family home when they were on Summer Break, preferring instead to spend time with their friends, playing sports or going out on dates.  For some reason, Will was never the social butterfly his brothers were, preferring instead to immerse himself in the history of government and politics.  Will wanted a career in politics, but in his opinion, that sort of a career and a family were mutually exclusive.  If a person had one, they shouldn’t have the other.  He felt guilty blaming his father, especially now, but though he knew deep down that Thomas Bailey had tried, had done what he could, had given what he could, the lonely boy he’d been had needed a father.  Perhaps if Will’s mother had lived, it would have been different.  In rare moments of family intimacy, Will managed to get Paul to talk about their mother, because as the oldest, Paul remembered her best; but she was as abstract a figure to Will as someone he’d never met, because he had only been a year and a half old at the time of her death.

************

_“Come on boy, you’ve got to learn to be less sensitive.  You’re just like your mother.”  Thomas was railing at his youngest son once more._

_“But...”_

_“No buts about it boy!  Buck up!”_

_“Yessir.”_

_“Good then.  You can go.”   Thomas waved his hand at his son as though dismissing an underling._

_Will turned on his heel and left the room, closing the door softly behind him.  It was just as well, he could feel the tears pricking the backs of his eyelids and it wouldn’t do at all for his father to see him cry.  It was Thomas’s opinion that men shouldn’t cry and at nearly fourteen years of age, Will was a man.  But he didn’t feel like a man.  He felt like a boy.  A scared little boy who was stuck in yet another new school.  Teased and called geek and nerd-boy and all of the other names he’d been called a thousand times before, but that didn’t make it hurt any less, because the optimist in Will always let him believe that it might just be different this time.  That he might just fit in..._

**************

            That had been the last time he’d let his father know about the teasing and the hazing, and eventually, he learned not to let it bother him...A lot.  He learned to focus on his studies and to shut out everything else around him.  It got him through.  

That was why, when Josh Lyman had grabbed Will’s arm at the Inaugural Ball and said; “Come on, I need another good cop if we’re gonna do this right.”, and Josh and Will and Danny Concannon and Toby Zeigler and Charlie Young stood outside Donna Moss’s apartment and threw snowballs at her window, the feeling of finally belonging to a group had nearly overwhelmed Will.  He would never let them know how much that night meant to him...Well, the whole day really.  Hearing his own words come out of the mouth of the President of the United States in his second Inaugural Address, words that would change policies and create a new doctrine, being pulled into that totally juvenile stunt of Josh Lyman’s, then being appointed Deputy Communications Director on the recommendation of Toby and of Leo McGarry.  That evening, Will knew the meaning of the phrase; “My cup runneth over.”  He had arrived.  Oddly enough, however, after everything else, it was the pride in his father’s voice that truly made Will feel good.

He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, willing the tears not to come, but the suppressed tears only burned his throat and made his heart pound painfully against his ribs.  He would get there and fix everything.  That was it.  It would all be better soon.  That thought and a few deep breaths made him feel better.

 

When Will arrived in Brussels, he looked around for someone, anyone he knew.  He wasn’t sure who would be picking him up.  At that moment, he saw his oldest brother.

“Paul.”  He called out and waved.

“Will.”  Coming toward his youngest brother, Paul Bailey held out a hand and Will shook it.  No sentimental hugging for reserved, taciturn Paul .

“How’s Dad?”

“Still the same.  I’ll take you to the house so you can drop off your things and get settled, then we’ll go to the hospital.

“No.  I want to see Dad right away.”  

Paul blinked at his brother as if not quite understanding the demand, then relented.  “Very well then.  We’ll go there straight away.”

“Good.”

They got Will’s bags from the carousel and then went to Paul’s waiting car.  On the way to the hospital, they only covered the basic pleasantries, but for the most part, they didn’t really speak much.

At forty five, Paul Bailey resembled his father more than his three younger brothers, both in looks and in personality.  He was nearly six feet tall and sturdily built.  His dark hair was beginning to gray at the temples and the dark brown eyes that were warm and sympathetic in Will were cool and impassive in Paul.

“Elaine said that she called Elsie.”  Will began.

“Yes.”  Was Paul’s answer.

“She was in California with Mrs. Bartlet.”

“Hmm.”

“You know that Elsie is on the First Lady’s speech writing staff don’t you?”

“Elaine mentioned something about it, yes.”

Paul never took his eyes off of the road during this entire exchange.  Will knew that Paul had never held much affection for their step-sister, and that had always baffled Will, but seeing it now, after spending so much time in Elsie’s vital and witty company, Will began to understand.  Paul and Elsie were complete opposites.  Paul didn’t understand Elsie and he didn’t feel the need to trouble himself to do so.  Paul’s loss, as far as Will was concerned.

When the brothers arrived at the hospital, Michael and John were already there.  Michael was holding a coffee cup in one hand and with the other, he was holding a cell phone to his ear, while a nurse was trying to make him turn it off.

John was simply sitting in one of the hard, plastic chairs, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

Michael finally closed the phone, shooting the nurse a black look as he did so.  

Apparently, the Financial World couldn’t do without Michael Bailey even during a family crisis.  Will thought wryly as he approached John and sat in the chair next to him.

“Hello John.”

“Will.”  John looked up and into his younger brother’s eyes.  “How are you?”  John shook Will’s hand as well, but where Paul’s handshake had been stiff and formal, John’s was warm and friendly.

“I’ve been well.  How are you?”

“Tired.”

“Yes, you look tired.  Did Carolyn and the kids come with you?”

“No.  They’re at home.  The children have school you know.”

“Of course.”

At thirty nine, John was a successful attorney at a large Manhattan firm, and he and his wife Carolyn made their home in Connecticut with their three children.

“Have you seen Dad?”  Will inquired.

“Yes.  Nothing has changed.”

“Elaine.”  Both John and Will rose to their feet as their step-mother came out of their father’s hospital room, shutting the door behind her.

“Hello William.”  She squeezed his hand and kissed his cheek.

“How are you Elaine?”

She wiped at her red eyes with an embroidered handkerchief.  “You should go in and see him.”

“Yes.”  Will squeezed her hand back then released it as he entered his father’s room.

There he was, lying on the bed.  The giant of his childhood, the man he had loved, admired, cherished, feared and dreaded.  He had run both to him and from him most of his life.  Now this object of so much awe was weak and frail and he looked...Well, he looked old and sick.  The sheer enormity of it made Will’s knees give way, and it was all he could do to make to the chair by the bed.

As Will sat, Thomas Bailey’s eyes opened and he turned his head toward his youngest son.  When their eyes met, Thomas smiled very slightly and his hand moved in a gesture that meant he wanted Will to grasp it.  Will obliged.

“Hi Dad.  I heard you gave everyone a bit of a scare.”  Where was the bright optimism in his voice coming from?

Thomas didn’t speak, only nodding a bit.

“You’ll be just fine.”

The nod turned to a slight shake in the negative this time.

“Sure you will.”  But even as he said it, Will knew better.

The massive coronary Thomas Bailey had suffered had taken quite a toll and Will knew it.  He’d watched Horton Wilde fade from this world and now, looking at his own father, he was under no illusions.  It was just a matter of time, and judging by his father’s resignation, not much time at that.  If he was going to do as he resolved, he had to do it now and he had to do it quickly.

“Dad.”  Will tightened his grip on his father’s hand, mindful of the IV tubing running into the back of it.  “Dad, I wanted to...Needed to tell you something.”

Thomas was waiting and Will cleared his throat.  “Dad, if I ever...I know that I wasn’t like Paul or Michael or John.  I know there were things I did...Or didn’t do...”  God!  Why was this so hard?  He’d had years to prepare.  But that was the thing wasn’t it?  He’d had years.  Years of covering up.  Of denying what it was he felt.  The stiff upper lip that the Bailey men were so proud of had come naturally to Thomas and his father, to Paul and Michael and even to John, but it had taken years for Will to cultivate it.  Now that he had, it was beyond difficult to break down that barrier he’d put around his feelings for his family.  Oh hell.  He needed to do it and do it he would.  “I’m sorry if I disappointed you in any way.”  There.  He said it.

The look in Thomas’s eyes was almost Will’s undoing.  It was shocked, disbelieving.  “I...Was always...Proud...”  The words were painfully, haltingly whispered, but there they were.

Will would have stopped there as the emotions flooded his very soul, but he couldn’t stop now.  There was more.  “I love you Dad.”

There it was, a small, but undeniably happy smile.  “Love...You...Too...”

It was said and it was more than enough.  Will bowed his head to their joined hands and cried the way he hadn’t permitted himself to cry in his father’s presence in more than twenty years.  Thomas slipped his hand from his son’s grasp and reaching up, stroked his hair.

 

Thomas Bailey lived just long enough for his youngest child, his step-daughter Elsie to see him and then he passed quietly.  Elaine and Elsie were vocally grief stricken, Paul and Michael were quietly and reservedly sorrowful, John was stunned and upset, but though Will heart was aching for the father he had lost, he knew that he’d left nothing unsaid and that gave him an odd sense of peace.

The funeral service was dignified and subdued and Will heard so many wonderful things said about his father.  Some things he knew, some he was unaware of.  At the reception following the services, Will was quietly supportive of both Elaine and Elsie, leaving neither of them alone for very long.

After the last of the guests were gone and Elaine had gone up to her room to lie down and Elsie to sit with her, and his brothers had gone to their respective hotel rooms, having preferred not to stay at the house; Will wandered alone around the room he most associated with his father, the library.  He looked at the books in the bookcases, taking a couple of them down and thumbing through them.  Most of them were historical tomes about government or the military.  Then he went over to the large executive desk and sat in the leather chair.  How often had he seen his father at this desk?  Will touched various objects on the desk; the brass letter opener, the heavy crystal globe his father had used to hold maps open, the old fountain pen that had been his grandfather’s.  Will closed his eyes and leaned his head back, resting it on the chair.  He let the sounds and the smells of the room overtake him.  The ticking of the massive grandfather clock in the corner, the smells of leather and pipe tobacco that always reminded him of his father.  When he opened his eyes again, they lit on the credenza on the opposite wall.  The top of this piece of furniture was covered with carefully framed photographs, some of them much older than Will.  He rose and went to the credenza to get a closer look at the pictures.

There were posed photos of the Baileys’ proud service to the leaders of the world like the picture of Thomas’s father, Henry, with Winston Churchill, the picture of Thomas with John Kennedy, and there were family photographs that were no less formal.  A picture of the Bailey children taken when Will was about eight years old.  Graduation photos of each of the boys and of Elsie, wedding pictures of Thomas and Elaine, Paul and his ex-wife Julia, Michael and Jane and John and Carolyn.  A picture of Michael’s two children and another of John’s three.  

Lifting his eyes from the photos on the credenza, Will noticed a large leather bound book resting on a shelf above it.  Reaching out, he took the book down. It was dusty and old, but still sturdy.  He took it back over to the desk and sitting down once more, he opened the book.  It was a photo album and the first picture made him catch his breath.  It was a wedding picture.  The young man was in uniform and his bride in an elegant satin gown and a veil, holding a bouquet of roses.  Both the bride and groom were smiling joyously and Will knew instantly that this was his mother and father’s wedding picture.  He’d never before seen a picture of his mother.  He’d no idea what she had looked like.  She was lovely and her eyes and smile were kind and so alive even in the fifty year old photograph.  He almost didn’t want to turn the page, but he had to see what else he’d been missing all these years.  The following pages were private and intimately candid pictures of his parents together on their honeymoon, their first Christmas together, pictures of his mother holding each of her children and others of his father holding each of them. A studio photo of his mother with all of her boys around her.  Paul looked to be about ten, Michael was seven, John was only four and Will himself, in his mother’s arms couldn’t have been a year old yet.  They were all smiling happily.  Will felt a smile touch his own features, but the smile faded as he turned the page and realized that though the book wasn’t even half full, that was the last picture.  He knew that his mother had died of Cancer, and putting two and two together, judging  by the time in which the picture had been taken, and the time of his mother’s death, Will figured that she must have found out she was ill, shortly thereafter.  He closed the book slowly and lay his hands upon it.  How must his father have felt?  It had to have been terribly difficult for him.

The door opened slightly and Elsie poked her head in.  “Hi.”  She said quietly.

“Hi.”

“I thought I’d find you in here.  Can I come in?”

“Sure.”  It was strange, but he felt guilty about being caught sitting at his father’s desk and about looking through the photo album, even by Elsie.  It was as though he was a child who was snooping where he didn’t belong.  So as she entered the room, Will rose once more and going back to the shelf, put the book ever-so-carefully back in its place.

“What was that?”  She asked, settling herself in to one of the chairs that faced the desk.

“Just some pictures I’d never seen before.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”  He felt oddly uncomfortable sharing those pictures with Elsie, so he changed the subject in order to distract her.  “How are you holding up?”

Elsie shrugged.  That, it appeared, would be her only answer.  “You?”  She asked, looking up at Will, who still stood in front of her, hands stuffed in his pants pockets.

“I’m all right.”

Elsie knew Will’s legendary stubbornness first hand.  When he didn’t want to say something, wild horses couldn’t drag it out of him so she changed the subject again.

“How long are you staying?”

“Just until Elaine is settled.  You?”

“The same I guess.  Unless Mom wants me to stay longer.”

“Okay.”

“Willie...”

“Elsie, I wish you wouldn’t...”

“...Call you that.  I know, I know.”  Elsie finished for him and conceded, hands up in a gesture of surrender.  She’d meant to make him smile by playing one of their old games, but no smile came.

“I’m going to get some fresh air.”  Will turned his back on Elsie and left the room.

She waited until his footsteps faded away and then sighed.  She would miss their dad too, but she didn’t carry the guilt with her that she knew contributed to Will’s pain.  The guilt of a son who really hadn’t had the opportunity to get to know his father, and now, when it’s too late, wonders if he had only tried harder...

 

Will left for Washington a few days later.  He was alone, as Elaine had decided to move back to the States and Elsie was helping her pack and take care of other business.  When he arrived at Dulles, he retrieved his bag, got his car out of long term parking and started driving toward his apartment, changing direction mid-stream and headed toward Pennsylvania Avenue.

Flashing his credentials for the guard at the front gate, Will pulled his car around to the staff parking lot and entered the building.  Though it was very late and he was tired, the moment he was inside the White House, Will knew he’d made the right choice in coming here instead of going to his apartment.  The guard greeted him by name and smiled and welcomed him back.  Will smiled back.  Really smiled for the first time since he’d received that call.

Walking down the dim, quiet corridor, Will was surprised to see the light on in Toby’s office.

“Hi.”

Toby looked up with a start.

“What are you doing here?”

“Good to see you too.”

“Good to see you.  What are you doing here?”

“I just wanted to drop some things off and pick up some other files.”

“Okay.  Hey, how’re you holding up?”

Will only nodded a bit to indicate that it was tough, but he was indeed “holding up”.

“I’m sorry about your dad.”

“Thanks.”

Toby mumbled something else.

“What was that?”

He cleared his throat.  “I...umm...I said that I would be here if you...umm...needed to talk.”

Will was pleasantly surprised and very touched.  “Thanks.”

“Sure.”

“I’m going to my office now.  Is there anything I should know?”

“Nothing I can think of.”

“Okay.”  Will went next door and sat down at his desk.  Sifting through phone messages and files, he came to a folded piece of paper.  Opening it, he saw a note scrawled in an unfamiliar hand.  It read simply; “I understand” and it was signed; Josh.

Sitting back in his chair, the feeling of belonging washed over Will once more.  Yes, he was most definitely home.

 

Finis


End file.
